"Alan Dean Foster - Splinter of the Mind's Eye" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

reward within their ability to grant, he had asked only to be permitted to continue piloting a fighter in
the Alliance's service. Some thought his request unduly modest, but one shrewd general disagreed,
explaining how Luke might be more valuable to the Rebellion without a title or commission which, the
veteran pointed out to his colleagues, would serve only to make the youth a prime target for Imperial
assassination. So Luke remained the pilot he'd always wanted to be, perfecting his flying skills and
always, unceasingly, wrestling with the Force Ben Kenobi had enabled him to begin to understand.
No time for meditating now, he reminded himself as he studied the instruments of his X-wing fighter.
A glance forward showed the brilliant pulsing sun-ball of Circarpous Major, its devastating radiance
stopped down to viewable intensity by the phototropic material of the transparent port itself.
"Everything okay back there, Artoo?" he called into his pickup. A cheerful beep from the stubby 'droid
locked in position behind the cockpit assured Luke that it was.
Their destination was the fourth planet out from this star. Like so many others, the Circarpousians
were appalled by the atrocities perpetrated by the Empire, but too paralyzed by fear to openly join the
Rebel Alliance. Over the years, a burgeoning underground movement had arisen on Circarpous, an
underground needing only enough aid and encouragement from the Alliance to rise and swing their
world to the cause of freedom.
From the tiny, hidden Rebel station on the outermost planet of the system, Luke and the Princess were
racing to a critically important meeting with the heads of that underground, to offer the necessary
promise of support. He checked his console chronometer. They would arrive in plenty of time to
reassure the highly nervous underground chiefs.
Leaning slightly forward and glancing to starboard, he could admire the sleek Y-wing fighter cruising
alongside. Two figures sat silhouetted by instrument lights within its cockpit. One was the gleaming
golden shape of See Threepio, Artoo's 'droid companion.
The other... whenever he looked at her, the other caused emotions to boil within him like soup too long
on the fire, no matter if she was separated from him by near vacuum as at present or by only an arm's
length in a conference room. It was for and because of that individual, Princess and Senator Leia
Organa of the now-vaporized world of Alderaan, that Luke had originally become involved in the
Rebellion. First her portrait and then her person had initiated the irreversible metamorphosis from farm
boy to fighter pilot. Now the two of them were the official emissaries from the ruling council of the
Rebel government to the vacillating underground on Circarpous.


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Splinter Of The Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster

Sending her on so dangerous a mission, Luke had thought from the first, was a risk. But a second
system was ready to commit itself to the Alliance, if it was announced that Circarpous had also joined.
At the same time, if that second system would declare its defiance of the Empire, then the
Circarpousian underground would undoubtedly come over to the side of the Rebellion. So not one, but
two systems waited on the outcome of this mission. And if it failed, Luke knew, both systems would
probably lose heart and withhold their desperately needed aid. They had to succeed.
Luke had no doubts, as he silently adjusted his ship's attitude a quarter of a degree to the plane of the
solar ecliptic, about the outcome of their mission. He couldn't imagine anyone who could not be
persuaded by Princess Leia. She could convince him of anything. Luke treasured those moments when
she forgot her station and titles. He dreamed of a time when she might forget them forever.
A beep from behind woke Luke from his daydreaming, wiped the smile from his face. They were
preparing to pass close by Circarpous V, and Artoo was reminding him of it. A vast, cloud-shrouded
globe, the planet was listed in Luke's library as being mostly unexplored, save for a single early
Imperial scouting expedition. According to the computer readout, it was also known to the
Circarpousians as Mimban, and... His intership communicator dinged for attention. "I'm receiving you,